The key to marketing is to know who you're talking to, and to do that, you need to get to know who is on your webpage. Website visitors can be elusive - even if you use tracking tools on your page, a lot of times the hit will come up as anonymous if you don't already have the IP number of the user in your system. So what are some other ways to get to know who is visiting your site? We have a few tips that we think are helpful.

#1 Put a form on the homepage

Putting a form on your homepage is great for a lot of reasons - it gets visitors to finish an activity on your page, which is great for SEO rankings, it can increase conversions, it can help you capture contact information (make sure you ask for it), and it can give you great insight into who is on your page. One of the most common forms to put on a homepage is offering a free download like an Ebook or a white paper, but you can also put a questionnaire that asks how they heard about your site or what they are looking for in your company.

Making a buyer persona of your ideal website visitor is a great way to break down the questions you have about your website visitors and research them one by one. A good buyer persona will have everything from the name and career of your buyer to personal information about their family, challenges, and goals. To collect information for your buyer persona, the best thing to do is to survey your existing customers and ask them to provide information that can be used to create a "typical" customer. You can also do market research for your industry and see who the common customer is for your product or service. Put it all together in the form of a fictional character that sums up who you are speaking to when you market your product. This is a useful marketing tool that will help you to better understand your visitors and their needs.

#4 Study your competition

One of the best ways to understand your visitors is to study your competition. Competing companies that have the same target audience as you are putting in effort to understand and speak to your customers. If you have a competitor with a great following and marketing strategy, take a look at what they are doing and how they are doing it. Chances are, they have a good grasp on who YOUR customer is, and can help guide you in the right direction in terms of establishing a connection with your target visitor. Perform a competitive audit and see how you can use your competition to help understand your industry and your customers.

However, don't become a copycat of your competitor - it's important to retain your own voice and authentic image.

#5 Be active on social media

Responding to inquiries, asking questions, sharing great content, there are a lot of ways to be active on social media and directly interact with your visitors. The beauty of social media is that it provides a relaxed, open space for people to get to know each other, and its important that you take full advantage of the exposure it gives you to your visitors. Whether you have an established community manager, or you are simply managing your social media as a larger marketing goal, being attentive, responsive, and engaging on your platforms is a great way to truly get to know your visitors.

Getting to know your visitors is essential if you want to make sure you are engaging with them the right way. Without knowing who you are talking to, it's difficult to create meaningful content or create relevant new products. Take the time to get to know your visitors, and watch your content and customer interactions become more sincere, meaningful, and profitable.